Lura
Hills
Professor
Brown
English
1B
15
April 2013
Beauty Pageants and their ugly truth
We all remember the tragic death of JonBenet
Ramsey. She was a 6-year-old little girl who was murdered and found in her
family home in Boulder, Colorado. Jon Benet was trained and groomed to be a
beauty pageant princess, a child star in the role of a dazzling woman. Her
mother was driven to promote JonBenet through pageant competition that
attracted a lot of adult attention to such a little girl. Was her killer made more aware of her more because she was more
in the spotlight, obsessed with her because she shined and stood out in beauty
pageants? Does anyone believe she would have been killed as she was if
she had never been in the pageants? Even if her pageant
"career" had nothing to do with her death, could she have had a
happier and higher quality of life in her short time in this world if she had
not spent so much of her time trying to be perfect instead of just a little
girl? I want to address the social issue of beauty pageants and its
affect on little girls in their later life. Many things stem from this problem
of beauty pageants. While it may seem harmless, and to some people it may seem
beneficial to children, there is a strong ethical argument that the small child
beauty pageant industry exploits parents and children in a way that causes
emotional injury and social adjustment problems.
Childhood is a time of being nurtured, of
innocence, and being protected from avoidable risk of injury. Childhood free of
hardship and stress is seen as pure and very highly valued. But it can be taken
away in an instant when children are given more exposure and scrutiny than they
can handle and cope with, and the effects could last a lifetime. Beauty
“contests” are slowly but surely stealing the innocence from the youth of this
nation one by one.
Thus, a show on TLC called, “Toddlers in
Tiaras”, is a show that gives viewers an inside look at the lives and the
beauty pageant process by following certain little girls and their parents and
their journey. Most of the little girls are under 8 years old, they are
whining, and don’t seem happy about the task of competing. Some little girls
are airbrushed, have spray tans, false eyelashes, get their eyebrows waxed, and
some even have fake teeth! After that they are then put on stage to dance
around in little skimpy outfits to be judged on their “beauty”.
Their whole self worth is put out there on the
line to be dissected and then told whether or not they are up to the standard
of the judges. One can only imagine what that must do to their innocence and
confidence. Being judged and told at a young age that what you look like and
your talents are what makes you important and matter can do major damage to
your way of thinking and view of yourself. The affects are not limited to just
the children on TV. Children at home are viewing it. They see the way these
girls are getting praised or rejected and put in the spotlight and they think
that’s what is beautiful. One of the little girls on the show Daisey Mae
actually said, "Facial beauty is the most important thing, in life and in
pageants”. I almost fell out of my chair when she said that! Daisey Mae’s
thought process has to be very similar to the rest of her peers that are participating
in these pageants. This warped way of thinking will drastically change the way
they see themselves and can lead to major problems.
The message from parents and adults is
that to be valued kids need to satisfy a standard that cannot be sustained.
Inability to be perfect or close to it lowers self-esteem, which makes it more imperative to “win” on and of the pageant
stage. According to the National Institute of Mental
Health, “Certain psychological factors predispose people to
developing eating disorders. Most people with eating disorders suffer from low
self-esteem, feelings of helplessness, and intense dissatisfaction with the way
they look. Adolescent and young women account for 90 percent of cases of eating
disorders.”
A lot of the routines of
these girls are highly sexualized and ultra-inappropriate for their age. Their
midriff is showing, the skirts are way too short, and their gyrating dance
moves just send it over the top on the inappropriate scale. Even if they are just
“performing” they are still absorbing the feeling of “acting” older than they
are. This tells them that they are more of an adult rather than a child.
So, the sexualization of theses little girls can be another factor in harming
their later lives. “A report of the American Psychological Association (APA)
released found evidence that the display of sexualized images of girls and
young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls'
self-image and healthy development.”
Childhood is complicated
enough, so simplicity and challenges that young people can handle are better
than holding them to age inappropriate adult standards.
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